A pertinent question for David Collier is whether he knew of Corbyn's mural comment when he compiled Palstine Live. I discuss the motives and timing of the work.

All I have is a voice / to undo the folded lie BBC's flagship Panorama has recently asked whether the Labour Party is antisemitic. To anyone familiar with the pro-Israel sources recruited, the answer was a foregone conclusion. In this paper I shall examine just a few seconds of footage, a "grain," in order to provide an insight into the overall message in the hour long documentary, part of an onslaught so relentless that it almost seems like an "eternity."

A teacher giving special help to a seventeen year old discovered that the girl had never heard of the holocaust, and so the amanuensis informed her of the basic facts. A little later she had to apologise: " I'm sorry Miss. I can't concentrate on the lesson. I just keep thinking of what that man did to them. " That's always struck me as a poignant lesson in how those with emotional intelligence can outstrip the learned. The girl had a genuine insight into the gravity of what for her was news. It may seem shocking that the girl could have remained ignorant for so long, but probably most teachers have come across enormous gaps. I imagine, however, that all modern Jewish children will have this experience burning in their memory from a tender age. This shared memory will form the basis of a common experience. And from this common experience we have the basis for common understanding and judgement including practical judgements. So the father of Margaret Hodge taught his children to always have their " suitcase packed and in the hall. " I can understand this. I can't defend, Hodge, though. Her outburst against the party leader for being racist was exaggerated, and I don't believe she was losing her temper – she was using it, and using it cynically. Corbyn was holding out against accepting the examples of the IHRA. It is said that criticism of Israel will not be censored, but to my mind the relevant criticism will be. That is, IHRA will be used to silence those who argue that an Apartheid State should be boycotted. As I have learned in some detail, the current smear campaign revolves around this point. i For this reason I regard her actions as insincere – even though I don't doubt the validity of the ethos acquired at an early age and shared with others in the community. * These remarks are preliminary to my point which is as follows. I have put some effort into getting at the facts of the smear campaign. ii But I have also learned from experience that virtually no British journalist is willing to take up the story. Omerta. Perhaps one reason is the creepy factor. In 1903 a forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, purveyed the sinister trope of a worldwide controlling influence of Jews – the theme of a cartoon shared by Jair Netanyahu, incidentally, as he (antisemitically) attacked George Soros. The feeling seems to be that to allege a conspiracy – as I do – and to suggest – as I also do – that this may be connected to the events of Gaza: this is too shocking for words. Still, I have once again to borrow the insights of those I am countering: General Uri Saguy once used the phrase " purposely timed hysteria. " That's what I think we're dealing with here. But still, and to get to my point, we can legitimately wonder how Israel does it. I don't suppose that Bibi has a touch-screen on his desk of a world map that allows him to press the hysteria button as and when, so that politicians will set up debates, established Jewry demonstrate, and Press give saturation coverage. This is what did actually happen in the UK, March – so that the events in Gaza were eclipsed in the British media. But to say that the outrage was for the smokescreen seems to imply a mechanism that sounds fanciful. Isn't it more economical to think simply that Corbyn's past was catching up with him so that the outrage was natural (rather than fabricated)? What, then, is the mechanism? To pose the question thus is to see how bad it is, for people are not things that work by clockwork. Still, although it is quite a controversial issue for sociological methodologists, there does seem to be some sort of thing as " common responsibility " and, at times,

In my investigation of the Labour antisemitism scandals I argued that what I called " grass roots Zionist hawks " acted as a ginger group. The hawks, as I called them, were easily identified especially on Twitter. Clare Quilty @CQuilty52, the blogger who released the MuralGate image would be one example, @GnasherJew who was quick to attack MuralGaga, my exposé, yet another, and Richard Millett @RichMillett, the Zionist without irony according to Corbyn, a third. I described such groups in one paragraph, and will repeat my description shortly. The point of this note, however, is to explain what hawks do, and describe how they do it. From the very first, that was my focus – the functional relations between groups. That was the point of my playing cards conceit. I identified hawkish clubs, digging spades, the hearts who have won our hearts, and precious diamonds – not to mention jokers to classify the various characters my study had examined: hawks, press, politicians, establishment, and even comedians. Although the study could not escape the Jewish/Israeli dimension (obviously, as the accusation was one of antisemitism), by no means are these groups confined to the Jewish community. Still, that was the focus, and the point on which to insist is that by no means did I assume homogeneity. To the contrary, only on condition that that community lacked homogeneity did the possibility of gingering up make sense. For what actually happened was that the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council actually organised their " enough is enough " demo on the streets of Westminster. Although this was a hawkish thing to do, my claim was that such behaviour was not " natural " – a point that was made humorously by Daniel Finkelstein who relates that some of the protesters had objected that there was " no point pushing because there was no food at the front. " Such good natured amateurism was the very opposite of hawkishness – a fact that served to shore up the narrative that exasperated Jews had been pushed to this extreme. To repeat, then, I wish to look at just how this ginger group did its gingering, but first I shall describe their nature. I described such hawks as follows: Hawks will have a single-minded concern with Israel, especially BDS, taking a belligerent attitude to the movement, associating it with antisemitism and comparing it to the Nazis. Indeed, they will attack Jews critical of Israel, including religious Jews – hawks may or may not be Jewish but on the whole have little connection to the Jewish religion, or show any interest in the prophets or the psalmists. They will be well-appraised of the situation in Israel from pro-Israeli sources, and be combative against pro-Palestinian support groups, at times disrupting book launches or meetings in Parliament (or show solidarity with those who do and who they follow on Twitter). They will scrutinise the communications of what for them are hostile groups, storing and sharing screen-shots that may indicate antisemitism, for instance, anti-Zionism, indeed, they will share the skills involved in such practices. Hawks establish links with media people they deem friendly, and nudge pro-Israeli politicians and establishment figures in the hawkish direction. Hawks, are of course pro-Israel, but I prescinded from any question of direct influence – as springing from the grass roots such groups would be quasi-autonomous. So as to how Israel " does it " I suggested the analogy of a religious group supplying a shared sense of meanings and values. For although the Jewish community as a whole lacks homogeneity, this is certainly not true of the hawks. Their gingering up consists precisely in the communication of such meanings and values that is possible precisely because the rest of the community has a certain plasticity. Were this not the case the ginger group would have no leverage.

Quilty released it but did he capture it? I'm inclined to think he didn't.

1. For the last sixth months I have been engaged in trying to understand the conspiracy of MuralGate. I use " conspiracy " here even though some might seize on this word, associate my work with " conspiracy theories " in a pejorative sense, and so dismiss it. I was faced with a choice of either choosing a new word, or using the old one but explaining how I distanced myself from, say, mystification such as #QAnon. My choice was to use a potentially ambiguous word but explained what I meant by a reasonable conspiracy theory. i I now want to distinguish between two kinds of " reasonable conspiracy theory " by speaking of " surface " or " deep " conspiracies depending on the openness of the sources for investigation. For instance, a source that is open to investigation is Twitter, at least those tweets that are not deleted or private. This was the source that I spent most of my time investigating. Let's say, I was investigating a " surface conspiracy. " However, the significance of the surface conspiracy (about which my methods could make some progress) was that it pointed to a deeper conspiracy about which my methods made less progress. This was one of the reasons why I repeatedly called for journalists with experience, skills, and contacts to investigate what I could not. We can break up the cases, then, between:

The claim is that both Luciana Berger and Daniel Finkelstein had not of "that" mural until March 2018. I look at the Jewish Chronicle and the machinations of Marcus Dysch.

This chapter surveys the theoretical roots of the antisemitism crisis associated with the British Labour Party since Jeremy Corbyn’s accession to power in 2015, specifically with reference to the notion of capitalism as a ‘rigged system’ imposed by the unproductive on the productive. Drawing on heterodox Marxian critical theory, the chapter suggests that this notion can create an environment where antisemitic perspectives are legitimated. It concludes that ‘truncated’ or ‘personalised’ critiques of capitalism block a properly critical and historical analysis of capitalist social relations, and thus fail to come to terms with the current transformations in capitalist society, with dangerous consequences for left politics in an age of authoritarian nationalism.

A short history of the UK LP a/s crisis in five acts.

In the light of a very understandable aversion to conspiracy theories, especially as connected with the antisemitism crisis I mention a few aspects of reasonable investigative journalism. I want to begin by taking as a basis something as simple as attention to public utterances, for example tweets. Thus there is no falling down a rabbit-hole of mysterious, occult forces. Second, progress is made simply by an ongoing process of raising questions and revising. This may involve special methods that is beyond the skills, contacts, and experience of the " armchair journalist. " My focus is MuralGate, which we may think about in terms of artificial versus natural outrage. Here the device of an ideal type comes into its own: four aspects of the community vis-à-vis the " outrage production process " may be sketched: activists, media, politicians, and establishment. This with a view to explaining how the establishment are gingered up. Some detailed examples show the value of a time line that serves to guide discovery, and how careful attention to the content of images may yield insights into their capture, and by way of corollary, the reason why they were captured. In a word, we situate that suspicious entity the conspiracy theory (which in this context must be juxtaposed to the " coincidence theory ") within the context of the journalistic scoop, one that holds out the promise of further scoops if the challenge is embraced. Reason and Investigative Journalism The very idea of a conspiracy theory, especially as applied to the antisemitism crisis in Labour, is bound to make some people uneasy because that road seems to lead to mystification and nonsense, nonsense backed up by ancient prejudice. But I don't think such accounts can be dismissed out of hand. After all, politicians get together to organise coups, sometimes working on particular communities having carefully mined data for analysis, and for very definite strategic ends that may be kept hidden. There is nothing esoteric about this, and, as per any other theory, we should be open to the desire to understand and reflect on whether our understanding is correct. This is of the very essence of investigative journalism because the whole point is to uncover what others would prefer to cover up. In other words there is such a thing as a " reasonable conspiracy theory " which may have practical utility: we may conclude that because this group is working for that policy by exerting such pressure then by countering with this concession will (will not) succeed. The key thing is that, as with any scientific theory, we have an aid to thought, one that will encourage others to think, and think more exactly. What, in general terms, are the procedures we should follow? In the first place we can attend to some publically available data, for example, the communications on Twitter between this person and that person. This data is constituted by meaning, for example, some tweeters may show an obvious concern with Israel, and perceived threats such as

ABSTRACT In 2018, on both sides of the Atlantic, commentators noticed that some mainstream media were treating George Soros the same way fringe Conspiracy Theorists used to: that is as a dangerous "boogeyman," as a "puppetmaster," as a "drug trafficker" and going as far as calling him "a Nazi," a label being concocted by serial conspiracy theorist Lyndon LaRouche years ago. It did not make much sense why this Hungarian Jewish émigré, who survived the Nazi Holocaust, was (according to Conspiracy theorists)... "a Nazi!" But in 2019, during the impeachment hearings against U.S. President Trump; Dr. Finoa Hill, who was an intelligence analyst under Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump as the top Russia expert on the National Security Council, she answered questions about these very conspiracy theories against Mr. George Soros: "This is the longest-running anti-Semitic trope that we have in history, and a trope against Mr. Soros was also created for political purposes, and this is the new Protocols of The Elders of Zion... " Dr. Hill was called by President Trump's friends such as Alex Jones "a globalist whore of Soros, a trafficker in evil"! So WHY and HOW has George Soros become such an international "Jewish villain and hate figure"; a campaign giving rise to anti-Semitism on both sides of the Atlantic? Like COVID19, conspiracy theories spread, are viral worldwide. HOW? I will explore and document the fact there were FUVE interconnected chronological developments leading to this situation: 1. Putin in Russia 1. U.S. President Donald Trump's Tweets and his Impeachment about Ukraine caused more anti-Soros smear rhetoric and acts of violence. 2. Hungary's PM Viktor Orbán was re-elected in 2010. His political successes were strangely due to two American Jewish consultants and political strategists recommended by his good friend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. These consultants were Jewish ultra-orthodox George Eli Birnbaum and "guru" Arthur J. Finkelstein, otherwise known as the "Merchant of Venom" and a master of the dark arts of negative campaigning. 3. Birnbaum and Finkelstein were seemingly inspired by the barrage of Anti-Soros smear Campaigns from Fox News' hosts. It all started in 2003 when the United States invaded Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein. George Soros became then a major target for the Republicans after he openly expressed that he was strongly opposed to this invasion and donated $ millions to defeat President George W. Bush. FOX TV News Channel's hosts Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly started TV media anti-Soros campaigns calling this donation a Soros' coup in the Democratic Party and Soros a Nazi among many other smears. 4. The LaRouche Cult Factor started in as early as 1996 and was boosted by the East Asian crisis of 1997 in which Soros was also involved. LaRouche's special report, "The True Story of Soros the Golem; A Profile of Mega-Speculator George Soros," circulated widely in Malaysia's leading circles. Although Lyndon H. LaRouche died in 2019 his cult is still active. He was known as an extremist crank, a fringe figure who moved politically from a "far-left" sect to the "far-right" political cult dedicated. He became a cult leader, a conspiracy theorist, a perennial presidential candidate who ran for eight times, including one when in prison for mail fraud. LaRouche's anti-Semitic campaign against Soros is not new. It is based on medieval anti-Semitic mythologies, now known as Conspiracy Theories. It is a revival of the Nazis' myth of the "Eternal Jew.". I was a full-time member of LaRouche's cult. WHY? There are three reasons for LaRouche's cult being so involved and determined against George Soros: 1. LaRouche's Anti-Semitism 2. LaRouche's Philosophy 3. LaRouche's Totalitarian Cult (Closed Society) Soros' philanthropy is consistent with and inspired by a philosophy of an OPEN (tolerant and free) SOCIETY based on Austrian-born British philosopher, academic, and social commentator Karl Popper. In the conclusion part of my paper, I explore the respective cults of LaRouche and Donald Trump. There are analogies between a conspiracy theory mindset and a cult mentality. Cults are totalitarian States in miniature. It is therefore not surprising that not only Trumpism but cults such as LaRouche's have been involved in a vilifying international campaign for decades against the liberal, critical thinker George Soros.

More plumes of smoke than a pile of tyres in Palestine.

Denis MacShane lobbying in the Tablet

A plea for journalists to take up a few leads. I compare the strategies used to smear Corbyn in MuralGate and CemetryGate, and suggest that we need to ask a few probing questions.

A philosophical understanding of investigative journalism.

Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air. In this paper I wish to look at some of the sources, the so-called "whistle-blowers," used by the BBC in Panorama's "Is Labour Antisemitic?" I believe that serious questions may be raised about the objectivity of the sources, questions that were ignored in the programme.

A methodological reflection loosely based on Lonergan's canons that explains the procedure adopted in the Pell Papers.

A recent account by a Brigadier General that Israel helped orchestrate the coup that ousted Morsi in 2013 sheds retrospective light on an attack in November 2012.

My complaint to the Jewish Chronicle now with IPSO. It gives a simplified version of my long argument in MuralGaga, namely, that MuralGate was not a "last straw" to which exasperated Jews said "enough is enough" but a calculated plan to fabricate outrage.

The tweets of the hawks make it so difficult to see.

Attention has recently focussed on the interventions of Rachel Riley in the Labour Antisemitism debates, and behind the scenes lies the provocatively titled “GnasherJew.” This article draws on my research into MuralGate and the role of pro-Israeli activists in particular who I argue have “gingered up” press, politicians, and prominent Jews to their hard-line agenda, in particular, in orchestrating a distraction from Gaza. This argument is prosecuted at length in a long essay MuralGaga which focussed on the blogger known as Clare Quilty (who released the image that triggered MuralGate), and at equal length in the study GagaPhooey, which considered the reception of MuralGaga. One difference between the two essays is that whereas the former drew on open sources, the latter could make use of the viewing data for that site available to me as possessing my own academic site. This adds considerable verification to the findings as it discloses the careful, indeed, international (yet covert) attention to my work. As scandal broke after scandal emphases shifted away from Clare Quilty (towards Marcus Dysch) and, as well picked up on the role of @GnasherJew, especially in relation to “his” tweets over MuralGate and in reaction to MuralGaga. These sources permit an understanding of Gnasher as predominantly Israeli-centric, and not, as the profile would have it, as showcasing Labour antisemitism.

Anti-Israeli leftists like Juan Cole have a long history of obscuring the true import of Iranian threats against Israel, as I demonstrate in this paper

A response to Bad News from Israel (2004) by Greg Philo and Mike Berry of the Glasgow University Media Group.

The Pell Papers from 8 March 2019 to 28 February 2020

A response to the CST report published today which examines the Rothschild Conspiracy trope online. The report cites this as a common manifestation of antisemitism. I point out the connection with Jeremy Corbyn, not for any intrinsic reasons, but because it is by this trope that his enemies have attempted to smear him.

In the past decade, people associated with what is known as the alt-right have employed a strategy similar to that of progressive, antiracist satirists to advance a decidedly white supremacist, anti-Semitic, misogynist, and deadly serious agenda. As this article docu- ments, the alt-right weaponizes irony to attract and radicalize potential supporters, challenge progressive ideologies and institutions, redpill normies, and create a toxic counterpublic. Discussing examples of satiric irony generated by the extreme right alongside those produced by the (often mainstream) left, this article pairs two satirical memes, two activists’ use of irony, two ambiguously satirical tweets, and two recent controversies pertaining to racism and satire so as to illustrate how people with very di erent political commitments employ a similar style with potent e ects. Of particular signi cance are reverse racism discourses, including “white genocide,” and the increasingly complicated relationship between intentions, extremism, and satire. Keywords: alt-right, satire, ironic authenticity, social media, racism, white supremacy, white genocide, redpilling

The Pell Papers, March 2019 to April 2020.

The continuous rise of far-right content and its increasing public acceptance under the Trump Administration are clearly observable in online spaces, where antisemitic and racist conspiracy theories are widely spread. The growing number of white supremacist terror attacks in the United States, and recently New Zealand show ideological relations to the progressively hateful online white supremacist movement. This paper analyzes discourses, tactics, and strategies of mainstreaming hatred via pop culture references, memes, and irony on the internet by this ‘New Right’ movement. Moreover, it focusses on Sweden as the primary example which the New Right uses to exploit deep-seated fears and attack multiculturalism. Discourse about Sweden prevails in far-right online forums as an illustration of the alleged danger of multiculturalism. This paper will also address the strategies which the U.S. Alt-Right and ideologically connected affiliations use to perpetuate this image. Correspondingly, this paper discusses how the New Right employs Norse symbolism and idealized images of a fictionalized historical Sweden as evidence for the detrimental effects of immigration in order to propagate a narrative of ultimately violent xenophobia. Additionally, it analyzes which narratives constitute the discourse about Sweden within U.S. media coverage on the New Right and in the mainstream. This is illustrated through the platform given to Swedish extremists on prominent U.S. media channels. Furthermore, this paper seeks to illustrate the personal, ideological, and organizational connections between the Swedish and U.S. far-right in terms of internet usage, rhetoric, and self-presentation. A special focus lies on both online and offline linkages between Swedish and U.S. New Right organizations, groups, and individuals.

This note is supplementary to a previous one, on the Militant Tendency of the Israel Hawks in which I recalled the nature of an easily identifiable group on Twitter that I labelled " grass roots Zionist hawks. " I argued that the implicit political philosophy of these groups was Schmittian in that these groups were polarised and polarising: all human affairs become reduced to friends-versus-enemies with " existential threat " looming in the background. I showed how these groups ginger up other groups which, though not fully sharing the values of the hawks, nevertheless had something in common that gave the hawks some leverage – indeed, like Archimedes, the hawks have " found a place to stand " and have thereby moved the world! I must now continue to explain the dissimilarities with the inventor of the lever. For I shall touch albeit too briefly on the nature of human reason which is a matter of asking questions, questions for intelligence that seek insight, and questions for reflection that seek to ensure that the understanding acquired by the first type of question is correct. In other words, human reason is heuristic, it serves to guide discovery, or to return to the man from Syracuse, we seek " Eureka! " (whence " heuristic " is obtained). In many ways the practice of the hawks leads to the eclipse of reason.

Shining a light on the attack dogs whose grievance against Corbyn, to begin with, was never antisemitism.

A cavalier use of evidence in the UK’s latest Home Affairs Committee report is feeding a moral panic about antisemitism, rather than dealing with an increasingly racist, intolerant society.

Fear is an emotion inextricably prone to irrationality. For fear regards a future evil, and not only does the pressure of that evil restrict the calm workings of sweet reason, but insofar as that contingency is future it is unknown, and so impossible to reason about with clarity. Take for example, the question of pre-emptive war that arose with Saddam Hussain. It was never perfectly clear that Saddam possessed WMDs (Hans Blix wasn't clear), and more generally, the number of threats that we might face, being indefinite, was therefore Legion. But just how is one to respond to a multitude of demons? So it came about that a community was taken in, taken over by fear. More profoundly, I think, fears can be irrational because we are never quite sure exactly why we are afraid. Distinguishing the "reason" from the "real reason" is difficult, and provides the condition for fear as a tool for manipulation. The shakers and movers know the real reason while those shaken and moved only know the "reason." I believe that in 2018 the British Jewish Community were taken over by a fear promoted as a project. i Here I except those associated with JVL who early on protested against the hysteria. Sadly, I can't except those moderates whose voices we needed to hear-Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner, Keith Kahn Harris, and Alex Sobel MP-for such people have avoided looking the uncomfortable facts in the face. For the facts of Project Fear were obvious enough, and articulated beyond reasonable doubt by those such as myself who was able to figure out what was happening despite no prior knowledge of the Jewish Community. ii Although the moderates were perfectly aware that I had claimed to get to the truth, they were unwilling to unpack the message and check. This was even true of an academic specialising on the Jewish Community who wrote a book on denial. He told me that my work was too forensic-forgetting, actually, the etymology of that word and its connections with the forum, the public square. The essence of self-deception, as Herbert Fingarette explained, is a failure to spell things out.

A bibliographical note on my writings on the Pell Affair written between 8 March 2019 and September 2020. 134 essays.

101+ Pell Papers